


It goads me, like the Goblin Bee

by tessaquayle



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Classical Music, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jazz - Freeform, Musical References, Rough Kissing, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 11:21:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14307576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tessaquayle/pseuds/tessaquayle
Summary: a variation of the proverbial 'i need to f*ck to feel alive after all this grief'





	It goads me, like the Goblin Bee

**Author's Note:**

  * For [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/gifts).



She sat motionless on the leather chesterfield, slightly mystified by why this morning hour made her homesick. Finished with breakfast, she took to lounging with her laptop, searching her iTunes library for something familiar. Vivian double-clicked on a selection, the gray type moving like a news ticker on the screen. The crescendo swell of the opening phrase blared too loudly - _fortissimo_ \- in the surround sound of the Bang  & Olufson headphones. Before she could savor the rich, lyrical pentachord, she suddenly wished she were home. Where she inhaled the fragrant juniper and California mock orange on a lazy afternoon, the sunlight and dust gauzing the hardwood floor in the corner of her living room.

The memory of her grandmother standing by the turntable: “I heard you were working on this piece, I brought my Argerich recording to give to you.”

Vivian had been amused as she watched the black vinyl slip from its yellowed paper sleeve. Seventeen and sure of everything, she’d quipped: “Thanks, but there’s this thing called a CD now. I can listen to it here, but once I move out, I can’t really take it anywhere else.”

Her grandmother - squaring her bony shoulders, the silver necklace slackening - had replied with a thin half-smile: “you’ll figure something out.” The same look had met Vivian when the young girl would sob backstage over wrong notes and lost trophies. A woman holding a granddaughter up by her arm, hissing: “cry all you want, but get up. Get up.”

***

It was her fourth year of residency. Vivian had gone straight from the hospital to the airport and ran the length of the terminal to catch the red-eye from JFK to YVR, her carry-on swinging from her shoulder and knocking her side with each quickening step. She had been grateful to be on a non-surgical elective where her presence was barely noted and where there were no calls to trade. The gastroenterology attending had nodded sympathetically and urged Vivian to take the whole week off. She would return within days. Work brought order to the disarray of grief - something she was learning she needed more than she’d know.

“Business or pleasure?”

The bored customs official didn’t look up as he flipped through the navy passport searching for an empty grid.

She stared at him through the glass pane.

 _Neither_ , she thought, _my grandmother is dying_.

“Family,” she managed to mumble, her throat dry.

The thunderclap of the stamp echoed in her ears as she turned away to force back her tears.

***

Vivian opened her eyes to see Gareth standing in front of her, his jaw taut and brows furrowed with worry. Startled that he caught her silently weeping, she felt her cheeks tighten. She lifted the headphones by the muffs, gingerly placing them on the end table, and licked a corner of her lips. She could taste the sticky salt, the savor that belonged to tears alone.

“Vivian? What’s wrong? Are you alright?”

“Oh God, yes - yes, I’m fine.”

She resented feeling especially disheveled while Gareth - in a collared shirt, unbuttoned and revealing his chest, sleeves rolled to his elbows - still managed to look distinguished without his customary jacket and tie. He reached into his pocket to pull out a neatly folded handkerchief, his long fingers grazing the inside of her wrist as he handed it to her. Vivian suppressed a chuckle, imagining Amy wrinkling her nose at this gesture: _hankies are disgusting snot rags, vectors of disease, their sexiness expired by the Edwardian age_. But in this moment, she welcomed the quaint token of comfort; she breathed in his scent, fresh soap mixed with a hint of bergamot.

“What’s going on?”

She carefully dabbed her eyes, blinking rapidly, and inspected the square silk for smudges of ash where the mascara - marketed as waterproof - may have run.

He sat down on the ottoman across from her and before she could shift her legs to make room for him, he gently lifted them onto his lap, his thumb brushing her bare ankle and caressing the hollow below the ankle bone. She relaxed into the couch and quietly let out a shuddering sigh. Eyes wet and cheeks dry, Vivian gathered herself to meet his constant gaze. She sank into his touch and exchanged a half-smile. She tried not to shiver, told herself he wouldn’t notice.

“Nothing. I’m not _crying_ crying,” she protested, sniffling, “I’m okay. I’m … I’m just very moved by this passage.”

“Alright,” Gareth said softly, deciding not to call her out on her deflection: “What were you listening to?”

“Schumann’s _Fantasie_. He’s probably the most emo 19th century composer.”

“I’ve never really listened to any Schumann,” Gareth admitted, clearing his throat. She sensed he was choosing his words. “My favorites are Bach and Beethoven. Is that pedestrian of me?”

“No, not really,” Vivian replied, thinking _maybe just a little_ , “you’d like this piece, then - it’s essentially an homage to Beethoven’s late sonatas.”

“I like his sonatas.”

“Oh?” Vivian’s voice lifted in curiosity – perhaps he knew more than he’d suggested. “Which ones?”

“Are you quizzing me?”

“No,” Vivian gave him an encouraging smile, letting it be teasing if he’d take it that way, “just won’dring, which ones do you like?”

“Well,” Gareth stalled, clearly not expecting to show proof of knowledge, “I heard Brendel perform Waldstein and thought that was a lovely song.”

“It’s a piece, not a song.” Vivian gritted her teeth.

“What?”

“Sorry, pet peeve. A song makes me think of something sung or a pop song. It’s a piece.”

“God, you’re such a snob.” Gareth groaned in mock exasperation. She expected a wary eye-roll, his lips to curve into a flirtatious smirk. Instead, he shook his head, a broad smile reflected in his grey-blue eyes.

“I’ve earned it!” she laughed. “I like the Waldstein, too. You have good taste! Anyway, this _Fantasie_ is a re-imagining of the sonata form. I’m a sucker for mastering the rules before bending them - which is a sort of reductive way to look at this. Form-wise.”

“Hmm,” he murmured, “I’d never really thought of it that way. About music, that is. What makes it so moving to you?”

“Schumann wrote this piece mainly in a state of frustrated passion. Longing. His eventual wife, Clara, was being kept apart from him by her father. So imagine all the pathos that comes with that.”

Vivian paused, unsure whether she should continue to unleash her rambling thoughts on such an esoteric subject. Gareth’s gaze remained inviting, and his interest held. She realized he saw through her harmless charade, and felt slightly chastened by it; she hurried to finish her cover story.

“And this particular passage - I don’t know how to explain it - it’s a parallel modulation of Clara’s theme into this… aching C minor - opens with a rising fourth. I don’t know what it is about that interval - the phrasing - that works so beautifully. So viscerally. I don’t have the words to describe that despair, that want…

“I know I must sound crazy. Or obsessed.”

“No,” he smiled, reconsidering, “well, aren’t we all a little mad? I just didn’t realize you’d written a comprehensive thesis on obscure German composers in your spare time.”

“Schumann’s not obscure. He’s only obscure to you.”

“You wound me.” She’d delighted him. She could see it in his expression, feel the subtle change in his touch, some lively eagerness he’d tamped down before.

“And I only know this stuff cause I’d performed it before,” she explained.

“Vivian! How did I not know this about you?” he said incredulously, “I want to hear you play now.”

“No, you don’t. I can’t really play anymore.”

“Q has an upright – play something when we’re all together, anything you still remember.”

“Gareth, I really – really I can’t.” She could probably pull off Gershwin’s “The Man I Love,” a breezy encore. The reflexive muscle memory becomes familiar, but never settles in comfortably. _Someday, he’ll come along_ … Singers rarely sing the forgotten verse, but Vivian imagined it wordlessly sneaking into the piano version: _although I realize as well as you/it is seldom that a dream comes true_.

“Not even one song, I mean, piece?” he asked, surprised.

She was not about to divulge the Gershwin tidbit. Not a piece with those lyrics – he’d probably know the chorus _and_ the verse. She thought of her grandmother’s reminder: “you can always play if you want - and if you get over yourself.” The delivery was more stinging in Mandarin.

“Maybe, I don’t know,” Vivian relented. “I’d have to practice. I’m beyond rusty.”

“It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

His words sliced her ego. Perfect. What did it mean now? What had it meant?

“I know,” she replied, softening. She looked at him intently and suddenly felt small. She thought of Schumann’s opening, its plaintive declaration: _accept then/these melodies/I sang for you/my love_. She wondered whether it sounded less melodramatic, less needy in the original German. She regretted not telling Gareth the whole truth. Grief stripped her raw, but not of pretension.

Vivian glanced at the grandfather clock and calculated another half hour until they needed to be at the meeting. She swung her legs to the floor and rose from the couch. Before Gareth could move toward her, she hiked up her skirt and lowered herself onto his lap, her knees framing his waist. He grinned up at her as she fumbled with his belt, his zipper, and gripped his cock, already hard. So she was not alone. _Now?_ _Yes,_ admitting hunger. She felt his arms cross behind her back, _I want to feel_ , she lightly bit his cheek, her mouth on his skin, _I want to feel you inside_ , her whisper hot in his ear. Arms around his neck, she kissed him and his tongue tangled with hers. As she inched closer to take him in, he leaned back to catch a breath. He was glowing, the sweat damp on his chest. Her face flushed with want, she leaned in to kiss him again, a long, unceasing kiss - hard, rough, wet - as if any break would end the spell or fever. Or the first slide in - her ears ringing, she could hear notes beneath his gasp, the lyric singing itself for whoever would listen, _I know we both won’t say a word._

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Emily Dickinson's poem "If you were coming in the fall." Martha Argerich has a brilliant 1976 recording of Schumann's "Fantasie Opus 17." Alfred Brendel is fine, but there are more inspired takes of Beethoven's sonatas. The loveliest non-piano-solo version of Gershwin's "The Man I Love" goes to Ella Fitzgerald. Any resemblances to real-life persons are purely coincidental. Honest. 
> 
> This is a gift to the fantastic middlemarch for single-handedly rescuing this drabble from cringe-worthiness.
> 
> Read middlemarch's "Happiness is like England" for backstory on Amy (https://archiveofourown.org/works/13529445)
> 
> A moodboard to accompany the story (created by middlemarch): https://78.media.tumblr.com/84005dceaf88d5d5961d0923e7c7c279/tumblr_inline_p768xvudL31u5jkrh_540.jpg


End file.
